by K C Norrie
THEY
The Beginning
by
K.C. Norrie
Book One
THEY
THE BEGINNING
Copyright 2019 K.C. Norrie
All rights reserved
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Published by K.C. Norrie Kindle Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Tatiana Villa
Vila Design
~*~ For Stavvick~*~
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Magic or Science I
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part 2
Prologue 2
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
The Bulletin
Magic or Science II
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
They
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Only screams rhymes with dreams
- Stavvick
Prologue
Mr. Ramsey's eyes opened, and he sat up in bed. When he tried to stand, he tangled his feet in the blankets and landed on the floor. He struggled to his feet and shuffled around the upstairs rooms before tumbling down the stairs. It took time for him to regain his footing. He could not see well and bumped into heavy furniture as he wandered through the main floor rooms. A flower-filled leaded crystal vase shattered as it hit the marble floor. No one was around to hear.
Cold. He felt so cold. He needed warmth. He tripped over a bucket of gray water used to mop the floor and sprawled across the wet puddle soaking the front of his gown. He slipped when he tried to get up. So cold.
Something warm drew near. He tried to catch the warmth, but it drifted away. He struggled to his feet and shuffled his stiff legs through an entry that led outdoors. The warmth he sought was gone. He tripped again and strained to get upright, but his foot had caught, and he could not get it loose. Angry now. He tried to shout, but only a rasping escaped. He rasped on and struggled free.
Something warm approached. He wanted the warmth. It was what he wanted.
It came closer.
"Mr. Ramsey?"
Closer. The warmth drifted closer.
"What are you doing out of bed?"
He struck as soon as the warmth came close enough. Oh, warmth at last, as he tore in with his sharp teeth, but too soon the warmth was gone, and he was cold again. He hobbled away.
There was too much light. He was cold. He shambled out of the light and disappeared into the woods.
We prayed for change. Who hasn't? But change is not a granted wish. It's a storm to be weathered. ~The Book of Answers
1841
The Storm
Jai` Doro, Brazil
1841
The people began to fade from Gerro's mind as soon as he began to journey down the mountain. The bald man, the lady with the long black hair, the blonde boy who brought him tea; the others who he had only seen in passing. As he made his way down to the village at the mountain's foot, he tried to memorize the things they said to him; utterances that made little sense. He repeated each of the phrases five times, so he would not forget.
"You cannot stop the mine disaster."
"Solutions still contain the problems."
"The ending comes before the beginning."
"A wish come true and a nightmare too."
"Your cat will know when it's time to go.
By the time he finished the fifth phrase, he couldn't remember anything else but how to make the tea. He didn't have a cat. By the time he reached the village he recalled the recipe for that yellow syrup that took away the pain from his terrible headache.
Chapter 1
Marita watched the man journey down the mountain path as she stood beside Julio's grave in the Jai` Doro cemetery. She had tracked his progression ever since she had spotted him from the kitchen window. He would vanish into the deep greenery from time to time, then re-emerge further down where the trees cleared, — just a smidgeon of red, drifting down the Jai` Doro mountain. It would take most of the morning for him to reach the village.
It was the first day it had not rained since the big storm, and she had come to the cemetery to examine her Julio's burial plot, making sure the storm had not disturbed him. Others were here tending to their own families. Carla and Rey straightened the stone on their baby girl Delia’s grave. She died this past winter from a fever that claimed twelve others. Young Berto prayed over his mother’s plot, another recent victim.
Julio's cough had become a part of their lives. He had coughed through the weddings of both their grown sons and the many funerals they attended together. Every day and through each night, Julio coughed and choked, while Marita fretted. A fancy diagnosis from Dr. Santos in Sao Cachito, could not fix him. Dust filled his lungs from too many years working at the mine.
Despite the cough, Julio had gone to work every day except Sundays when the mine was closed. They needed the pay, though the amount had dwindled along with the silver these past years.
Marita wiped mud from her husband's headstone and thought of the days when the mine was prosperous, when the two of them had been young and full of dreams. They had made plans to save money and move away. Some place where they could buy a little land to raise and grow what they needed.
She remembered that long-ago day when they left Jai` Doro, riding out of the village with an old horse and a cart loaded with babies, belongings, and dreams, waving goodbye to their parents, just bursting with happiness.
The weather turned against them. Droughts and floods ruined their crops and broke their dreams, pushing them all the way back to Jai` Doro. They came back stronger and harder. The dreams were left behind.
"We had each other. That's what mattered," she said to the ground where Julio's body rested. "I miss you so." She held back the tears. She had cried enough.
A few months ago, the coughing stopped, waking Marita in the night. She had lost him.
Blurry days followed.
They relocated her into the home of her oldest son Kenro and her daughter-in-law Fresca.
Fresca welcomed her heartily. They were expecting Marita's first grandchild, and said they needed her help. Living with them eased the loneliness but the sorrow remained. Every day she missed Julio, and every day reminded her that both Kenro and her younger son Juan worked in the same mine. Every day she saw their futures engraved on Julio's tombstone.
"You should have seen the storm," she said to Julio's grave.
There had never been such a storm. The day had been uncomfortably warm and still. The sky grew dark and then even darker. Everyone took shelter. Marita's family gathered together in Kenro's house, as his home was the larger of her two sons. No one slept for the thunder boomed deafening and relentless. Marita, Kenro, Fresca, Juan, and his wife Christina crowded together at the kitchen table as lightning struck close by, while the wind howled, shaking the doors and shuttered windows; a demon determined to reach inside. They screamed as one, grasping hands, when a heavy object struck the roof. Marita thought of Julio all alone in the cemetery.
The storm ended just before daybreak. Exhausted, everyone slept. The mine would be closed; its entrance would be flooded and inaccessible.
When they woke, it still rained, but not the storm rain. Juan and Christina returned to their own home, as a soft steady rain continued for days. The streets became fast moving rivers, and Marita envisioned Julio's coffin unearth and drift away on a current of water.
At last, just this morning the sky doffed its clouds and shined down clear and blue, the rain having stopped sometime during the night.
Marita was enjoying the view from Fresca's kitchen window when she spotted the red speck high up the mountainside. She wondered if the storm left it, blowing it in from some place far away. As she watched, she realized it was a person making his way toward their village. A man, as she'd never known a woman to travel alone.
She watched another minute, then dressed and tucked her gray-streaked hair beneath a scarf before making her way out to the cemetery.
Traversing through mud and debris, she fretted at the destruction she saw throughout Jai` Doro. Fragments of roofs and chimneys, broken shutters, fences and yard items were scattered widely.
"The village will pull together to repair the damage," Marita said to Julio's grave. "This is when everyone misses you the most."
Despite his cough, Julio would have been one of the first to begin clearing the streets and repairing the wreckage.
As she left the cemetery, she glanced back up at the man in red. He'd arrive soon. Marita headed home to get ready to welcome him to the village. Jai` Doro was isolated, and few traveled this way. Strangers were welcomed as friends. Outsiders carried news from other places. Marita recalled someone who told stories when she was a girl… and a fellow who taught them card games still popular today.
Strangers brought new perspectives.
"A chance to see through another's eyes" was how Marita's mother put it. Impressions remained long after the strangers moved on, rendering subtle changes not just in Jai` Doro itself, but in every life the stranger touched.
Back at Kenro's, Marita prepared a hearty soup and decided she would serve the bread they baked the day before.
She left it to simmer on the stove with Fresca, and headed to the mountain path, ready to greet the stranger when he arrived.
Welcome to Jai` Doro," Marita greeted. "I am Marita, and these are my sons. You must be hungry. We invite you to our humble home where I have prepared a hot meal."
Marita's sons had come along and helped the man carry his few belongings.
The stranger introduced himself as Gerro. Gerro was a small older man, close to Marita's age. She noted his bright red shirt stained with travel. He thanked them and followed along as soon as introductions were made.
"I am from La Sierta, a village far south of here," he told them. "I was on my way to the ocean. I don't know how many years are left to my life, but my dream is to spend them fishing and watching the sun rise and set. I am just following a dream."
He chattered the entire walk home through the debris-strewn village.
"I see the storm has been here. It caught me as I traveled across the mountain. I tried to find shelter in a cave but was stranded out in the open. The wind was so strong, and the rain fell so hard, I couldn't even see. When it began to hail, something struck me hard in the back of my head."
People emerged from their homes calling greetings and waving to them.
"It's the last thing I remember. When I woke up, I had a painful headache, but I was being tended to by a group of people. They had an odd way of speaking, but I understood them. They gave me a syrupy medicine which took away my headache and showed me on how to make both a red tea and medicine from this vine."
Gerro carried a tied-up bundle of vines, which he held up for them to see.
"These vines made the tea."
Marita thought the man possibly delirious from being hit in the head during that storm. No people lived up in the mountain. There weren't any places to live. She held her tongue and said nothing.
Marita and her family conversed with Gerro throughout the soup and bread. He blended in like an old family member just returned home. Gerro talked of his wife's recent death. The two of them had survived their three children, and now she was gone too. "I have no one left," he told them.
They talked about the storm, and the rain, the death of Julio and the other deaths the past winter.
"These vines will no doubt help your village. They make both the tea and the yellow syrup they gave me for my injury. The tea revives and the syrup cures, is what they told me."
Talk turned to the mine and the decreasing silver. Men were having trouble keeping their families fed.
"I fear my vines cannot help the mine," quipped Gerro seriously. The others laughed taking it for a joke.
After dinner, Gerro helped Marita with the washing up. As they washed, Gerro whispered, "How many days did you say since the storm?"
"Ten days." Marita looked at him curiously. "Why do you ask?"
"It's just so odd," he murmured. "It seemed only a few days ago that I woke among those people. I must have slept for days."
****
Gerro prepared the vines for the tea. He tied them into smaller bundles and hung them up to dry, from a rafter high in Fresca's kitchen.
"They won't take long," he assured them. "Just a few days."
As the bundles dried, Gerro helped clear the storm damage and restore the village.
He was an easy man to like; introducing himself to everyone he met, telling them about his dream to see the ocean. He explained all about the magical revitalizing tea he was preparing.
"There is also a syrup I will make later. It promises to restore good health."
The village indulged his story of the people on the mountain that helped him after the storm. No one knew of any such people and they'd lived in the village for generations, yet there had never been such a storm. Gerro was not a big man, and they half-wondered if he hadn't blown in on the storm itself from some exotic place.
****
He invited the entire village to try the tea. It became an after-storm celebration. They held the fiesta in the hall beside the church and invited everyone. They lit lanterns and candles and came dressed in their church clothes.
They used big soup cauldrons to steep the tea and everyone brought their own cups from home. Soon everyone was sipping red tea exclaiming how good it tasted. Even the children liked it.
A few guests played instruments and people danced. There was conversation and much laughter. Father Muniz led them in prayers of thankfulness and welcomed Gerro to the community. At the end, people walked home cheerful and light of heart.
A week later, Gerro led a group of the villagers, up the long mountain path through the dark of the night, beneath the light of a full moon.
The path took them into an open meadow. Marita, who walked with Christina and Juan, heard gasps from the group in front of them and wondered what caused them to do so. Every
one had been to this mountain meadow countless times throughout their lives. Marita had not been here in years. When she stepped into the meadow, she heard a small gasp escape her own mouth. Tiny white flowers filled the meadow, and glowed like stars, beneath the moonlight.
****
Marita sat on Kenro's front porch knitting baby clothes for her grandson or granddaughter, about to be born. Julio would have been so proud. Henori, a neighbor spotted her and stopped by to talk.
"He's hiding something," said Henori. Henori had a suspicious nature. He didn't like Gerro.
"What do you think he's hiding?" asked Marita.
Henori didn't answer. He never did when confronted with his suspicions. Julio used to say Henori liked to stir things up because he didn't like things to change. He needed others to agree with him.
"I trust him,"Marita answered. "I feel he has made Jai`Doro a better place to live. Perhaps you should give him a chance."
Nowadays everyone drank the red tea, and every household contained a bottle of the healing syrup. The first batch had barely cooled on shelves, before a child became ill.
Five-year-old Zia became feverish and weak. She lay in bed refusing to eat. Her lips began to dry and crack. Gerro urged the child's mother to try the syrup which she did with shaky hands. The child woke up hungry several hours later and was outside playing with the other children by the end of the next day.
****
Father Muniz encouraged Gerro to stay in the village.
"You are not the fisherman type," he told Gerro. "You talk too much. Who will you to talk to out there in your boat? Dead fish? Some old cat you drag along against its will?"
Gerro smiled but said nothing as he studied the chessboard. He had learned the game from his grandfather many years ago and Father Muniz was delighted when he'd spotted the chess set among Gerro's belongings.
"Do you play?" Father Muniz had asked him.
Since then, they had spent several enjoyable evenings outwitting each other.
"Besides, who will you play chess with after you eat your fish?" he asked. "You will miss us too much."
